Below is a description of selected issues that the ABS will be implementing as a result of revisions to other international statistical standards, in particular SNA08.

ECONOMIC TERRITORY

The BPM6 definition of economic territory no longer requires that persons, goods, and capital circulate freely within the territory. As a result of this change, Norfolk Island is now part of Australia's economic territory for the purposes of compiling the international and national accounts. This change was outlined as a key issue in the Discussion Paper: Proposed Standard Economic Sector Classifications of Australia (SESCA), 2008 (cat. no. 1218.0.55.001) which was released on 26 March 2009.

Australia's economic territory is the area under the effective control of the Australian government. It includes the land area, airspace, territorial waters, including jurisdiction over fishing rights and rights to fuels and minerals. Australian economic territory also includes territorial enclaves in the rest of the world. These are clearly demarcated areas of land, located in other countries and which are owned or rented by the Australian government for diplomatic, military, scientific or other purposes. Specifically, the economic territory of Australia consists of:

Geographic Australia which includes Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Christmas Island

Norfolk Island

Australian Antarctic Territory

Heard Island and McDonald Islands

Territory of Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island

Coral Sea Islands

Australia's territorial enclaves overseas.

Because of administrative complexities and measurement difficulties, Norfolk Island transactions will not always be captured in all relevant ABS economic statistics. Most of the transactions involving Norfolk Island are not material to Australia's overall economic performance and not capturing these transactions will not distort the economic statistics. However, any significant transactions will be identified and included in the relevant statistics.

OTHER CHANGES TO MACRO-ECONOMIC STANDARDS

The ABS is incorporating the results of a number of changes in the national and international accounts from the implementation of SNA08, BPM6 and ANZSIC06.

The main changes are listed below:

introduction of Research and Development as capital formation

capitalisation of Expenditure on Defence Weapons Platforms

implementation of orchard growth in the capital and production accounts

Balance of Payments and International Investment Position statistics will be published in a different format.

The key impact from the first three of these changes will be to reclassify these types of activities from intermediate consumption to gross fixed capital formation, resulting in an increase in gross value added in affected industries. The impact of these changes on key aggregates of the Australian TSA is expected to be minimal.